A lot of sadness will be felt amongst Brits of my vintage as they learn of the passing of a man who was/is, for so many of us, a legend. I know that, like the word ‘genius’, the word ‘legend’ is bandied about causally these days but I’m not doing that here – I, like most Brits around the age of 50 today (I guess mid-40’s to mid’50’s) saw Brian Cant, back in the 1960s and 70’s, as a friend, someone in whose company, via the TV, we felt safe, secure and happy. We loved ALL of the Play School, and Play Away, team (not sure that we’d see a children’s TV show being called ‘Play Away’ today??!!).
I think, even back then, when we were 5, 6 years old, we knew that Brian was the voice behind our other favs, Trumpton
and Camberwick Green
and Chigley
I know that there’s a lot of tragedy in the news today and, of course, this doesn’t push the stories and outrages out of the headlines but, still, it’s sad, another link to our childhood which has now moved to its resting place in the British TV history books.
I know that there were terrible happenings in the news in the late 60’s and early 70’s when we were kids growing up in Britain but I, and most of us, were blissfully unaware of it all. I, most of us, thought the world was a good place and the voice of Brian Cant takes me/us back to that time.
Brian, whose work went beyond children’s TV, his voice soothes us. He was a living link between where we are now and our childhood years. Brian’s passing seems to push the past, our ages of innocence, further back, further away, and it reminds us, with a big punch, that the world isn’t the one that we thought it was all those years ago.
My thoughts, of course, go out to Brian’s family and to all of those who worked with Brian way back when…
Brian Cant, RIP.
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